The Promise of an Empty Grave
by Troll Princess
Summary: Magneto gets a very special visitor. One-shot.


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**The Promise of an Empty Grave  
by Troll Princess**   


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If killing myself were an option, if I thought that slicing my wrists in a T-cut or shooting myself in the head would do anything more than ruin a perfectly good Gap sweatshirt, I'd do it. In a heartbeat. Maybe less.   
  
So, it'll stop, right? You -- you touch me, or concentrate on me, or whatever it is you've got to do, and the pain goes away, right?   
  
I'll never feel this again?   
  
Make it stop. Please.   
  
What? Well, no. It's not all the time. I walk, and talk, and do everything a normal person's supposed to do. But that's the thing, I think. I'm not normal. But my problem ... it's the pain.   
  
How do normals *do* this? All the time, day in, day out. Break a leg, get a paper cut, a toothache or something. How can they manage?   
  
I can't -- it hurts right now. It hurts so goddamn much.   
  
I've never felt this way before.   
  
No, I'm serious. When I was a kid, it was -- sometimes I got colds, but that was maybe once or twice. And little kids ... they're supposed to break bones, right? Once, maybe twice. I've never broken a bone. Never.   
  
I don't even know what a paper cut feels like.   
  
So, it's just going to hurt for a little bit, right? Do I get a lollipop?   
  
I know. Bad joke. But if this kills me, you know, I won't mind. I told Dad that. I think it was the only reason he pulled the strings that got me in here.   
  
I can handle dead. 'Cause in dead, there's no surprises. You're dead. It doesn't matter anymore.   
  
Last month, my parents told me I'm adopted.   
  
Ha. Some surprise, right? I showed you the picture. Of my mom and dad. Yeah, the kinda nerdy ones, blond, blue-eyed, that huge, Nordic look. I think I knew I was adopted long before they told me. I mean, God, look at me. Dark hair, dark eyes, dark complexion. Like some dark changeling in their midsts. In the family pictures, I'm the negative to everyone else's positive. I'm a female ghost.   
  
Dad once pulled me away from a metal detector at the airport and made me take a bus. I should have known then. That something was wrong, you know?   
  
It won't hurt too much, will it?   
  
Not for long? Good, good.   
  
I told you I was a mutant, right? 'Cause my parents told me that, too. As if I didn't know. As if I hadn't known when I'd stuck my hand through the kitchen window.   
  
Do you have any idea how white bones are? I mean, really are? Under flesh?   
  
Oh. Yeah, I guess you might. I mean ... I didn't mean ... sorry, that came out wrong.   
  
Mine weren't white.   
  
Damn it, I'm in high school! I'm not supposed to feel this way!   
  
Yeah. Fifteen. I just turned it last month. We had this big party and everything. Dad even got a pony. He thought he was being cute. Of course, then later on, he brought out these files and started talking about this experiment --   
  
What? Well, I don't think they were experimenting on me. That's the thing. It was someone else, mostly. A couple of people, maybe more. Have you -- have you heard of it?   
  
Oh. I was kind of hoping for, I don't know, for something. Anything.   
  
They told me they took me in when the project failed and went under, because no one else wanted me. That we moved to Virginia, they put me in preschool, got jobs at some hospital and turned us into this cutesy little family.   
  
That I had a father somewhere. A mutant father.   
  
I knew that already, though. The mutant part. I mean, I smelled things. You know, like, people. My friends would leave the library at the high school, and I'd come in, and I could tell exactly where they sat. It was kind of creepy.   
  
I stuck my hand through a plate glass window last year. I said that, right? Mom and Dad weren't home and I slipped washing dishes and just -- my hand went right through. I don't think I even remembered to scream, because no one came. But my wrist just healed right up. Pulled right together like it had a mind of its own. I told Mom a bowl went through the glass. I never mentioned my wrist to her.   
  
What are you looking at?   
  
I'm afraid. I can't be hurt. I tried, a couple of times. I don't have a death wish, no matter what I say. I'm just testing the limits. Does that sound right to you? And there's never any pain. After Dad pulled out the folders, he said I was an improvement, a next step. That they'd figured out what was wrong with my father and took out the pain and made me.   
  
But I've felt pain. Now, I have. And I don't like it. You're the only one who can do anything about it. I looked. I've been looking ever since --   
  
Oh, God, I can't do this anymore.   
  
I think it's because it's unnatural. I mean ... God, how do I say this? Banging your knee against a table -- you can expect that, your body can expect that. It can't expect what I've got inside of me.   
  
I can see my future, you know. No, not literally. Just ... did you ever walk through a graveyard? The old ones, the ones where the names are worn away with age and ivy grows along the gates? There's one in the woods behind my house. No one but me goes there anymore. You know, I've never felt at home in graveyards. That one or any other. Like I'm going to end up there someday, you know? I just ---   
  
I don't think I'm ever going to die.   
  
Don't you see? Whether or not you do this, I'm never dying. I'm never going away. My future is staring into an empty grave, and never being allowed in.   
  
But this way, I don't have to feel that other pain anymore. The pain I'm used to, I can keep. Like I was left behind. Like I was abandoned. I mean, they say he never knew about me, but still ...   
  
I don't want to feel the pain I felt last week when those claws came through my hands. Those sharp, metal claws.   
  
I've never felt that pain before.   
  
I've never felt it. Ever.   
  
So, Mr. Lehnsherr, if it's not too much trouble, can you get this skeleton out of me or what?   


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End file.
